Who's Who Q&A: Major General Mark S. Solo
Written by Jeff McKaughan
MLF 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 10 (November/December)
Proving Global Reach 24/7, Anywhere
Major General Mark S. Solo
Commander
618th Tanker Airlift Control Center
Solo was commissioned in 1978 after being named a distinguished graduate in the ROTC program at Michigan State University. He served in a number of operational positions. While serving as a C-141B chief pilot in the 8th Military Airlift Squadron, Solo commanded 26 combat support sorties during Operation Desert Storm. During operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, Solo directed the Joint Logistics Operation Center at the Pentagon. From the National Military Command Center, he coordinated all deployment orders to meet combatant commander requirements for the Global War on Terrorism. Prior to his current assignment, he was deputy director, Air, Space and Information Operations, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB.
As a mobility pilot and leader, Solo’s experience includes: commander, 22nd Airlift Squadron, Travis AFB, Calif.; deputy chief, Political-Military Affairs Division (J-5), U.S. Central Command, MacDill AFB, Fla.; deputy commander, 436th Operations Group, Dover AFB, Del.; commander, 436th Operations Group, Dover AFB, Del.; chief, Mobility Division, Logistics Directorate, the Joint Staff, Washington, D.C.; chief, Joint Logistics Operations Center, the Joint Staff, Washington, D.C.; commander, 97th Air Mobility Wing, Altus AFB, Okla.; chief, Office of Military Cooperation-Kuwait, Kuwait City, Kuwait; deputy director, Air, Space and Information Operations, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Ill.; and commander, 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center, Scott AFB, Ill.
The general is a command pilot with more than 4,900 flying hours in the C-141, C-5, KC-135 and C-17, and has also served in multiple joint assignments.
His awards and decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Legion of Merit with one Oak Leaf Cluster, the Meritorious Service Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Air Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal.
Solo was interviewed by MLF Editor Jeff McKaughan.
Q: General, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. To get started, could you please explain the 618th TACC’s role?
A: Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today about our mission, Jeff. I’d like to say right up front that the 618th TACC is an AOC at war, and job number-one for us day-in and day-out is to ensure our troops overseas get the supplies, equipment and support they need, when and where they need it.
We accomplish that by planning, allocating and executing global airlift, air refueling and aeromedical evacuation operations as the air arm of U.S. Transportation Command, on behalf of Air Mobility Command and Eighteenth Air Force.
On any given day, Air Mobility Command plans approximately 900 point-to-point flights, called sorties. This broad scope encompasses all of the missions in AMC, all the way from airlift or air refueler training to airlifting equipment for Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. Of those 900 sorties, the 618th TACC plans the operational airlift, air refueling and aeromedical evacuation missions, which are the missions that are moving personnel and equipment in support of a U.S. transportation need worldwide. We go anywhere, anytime, and we’re flexible enough to fly on short notice or set up recurring missions, over a long period of time.
In fact, so far in 2009, TACC-controlled missions have moved more than 1.4 million passengers and 550,000 tons of cargo, which is the equivalent of moving the entire population of Washington, D.C., 2 1/2 times, and six Washington Monuments, worldwide. And it’s important to note that we’re not just meeting Air Force requirements with our missions. Every day, we’re flying missions in direct support of each of our sister services, as well as providing support to our coalition partners.
When it comes down to it, there’s no other organization in the world that has the same scope of air mobility reach and responsibility as the U.S. Air Force and the 618th TACC.
Q: How does a user’s requirement become a mission for the 618th TACC?
A: First, a user—in most cases a combatant commander— identifies a requirement, such as the need for MRAPs in theater. That user will submit their requirement to the U.S. Transportation Command, next door to us at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. USTRANSCOM will validate the mission, assign it a priority level according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff priority listing, and determine whether that requirement will move by air, land, sea or a combination of the three. If it’s by air, the 618th TACC gets the call to plan the mission, provide an aircraft, and exercise command-and-control over the mission from our 24/7 operations floor.
Once USTRANSCOM validates the requirement and if it’s moving by air, it comes over to one of three planning directorates in the TACC, depending on the type of mission. We have a variety of airlift, air refueling and aeromedical evacuation mission types, ranging from exercise support and humanitarian operations to refueling fighter jets, providing VIP airlift and of course support to contingency operations such as OIF and OEF.
Once the mission is planned, it moves on to our Mobility Management Directorate, where the planned mission gets tasked out to an AMC base or available Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve volunteer. At that point, each tasked unit then assigns one of its aircraft and aircrews to fly the mission.
Finally, the mission moves to our Command and Control Directorate where we obtain diplomatic clearances—more than 25,000 per month—that allow AMC crews to land or overfly other nations. We also create the flight plans the crews will use and then flight-follow the missions from the ops floor. We track maintenance issues and source parts and personnel to fix broken aircraft, and through the Theater Direct Delivery Division, we exercise operational control over all C-17s that are forward-positioned in the U.S. Central Command AOR for missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, Pakistan and other areas.
All of those operations on the floor are overseen by an experienced colonel, called the ‘senior controller’ from our Director of Operations Directorate, or XOZ. He or she is the 618th TACC’s lead for keeping the mission moving, and if there’s a major issue within the mobility system, either the senior makes the decision, or he or she makes the call to the higher headquarters agency that will make the decision.
Bottom line: If it’s an inter-theater airlift, air refueling or aeromedical evacuation mission flying worldwide, the 618th TACC is responsible for planning, tasking, and command-and-control.
Q: Another big piece of your operations has been to aeromedically evacuate wounded troops, and in some cases civilians, out of Iraq and Afghanistan and on to higher levels of care. How does that process work inside of the 618th TACC walls?
A: Aeromedical evacuation is one of our core capabilities in the air mobility world, and our AE cell in the 618th TACC accomplishes missions every day that are worthy of headline news stories. In Vietnam it took about 45 days for casualties to return home. During Desert Storm, it took 10 days to move wounded patients to the United States, and the survivability rate was 75 percent. The combination of high-tech medicine, robust en route care, and rapid medical evacuation has resulted in a system that has produced the lowest lethality rate in recorded conflict. Today, wounded warriors who reach the AE system have a remarkable 95 percent survival rate, and are returned all the way back to the United States in three days or less.
A great example is a mission that happened in late July this year, involving three Air Force aircraft along with three aircrews, aeromedical evacuation teams, and agencies from around the world to save a coalition partner. A British soldier had sustained multiple gunshot wounds and had his blood supply replaced more than 10 times at a military hospital in Afghanistan. As the patient’s respiratory condition worsened, doctors determined the patient had to be moved to upgraded care in Germany. Officials at the Combined Air and Space Operations Center and Joint Patient Movement Requirements Center in Southwest Asia, and the Global Patient Movement Requirements Center and 618th TACC at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., immediately started working to find the aircraft, aircrews and specialized medical teams to airlift the soldier to further care. The patient was airborne within hours of receiving the call for support at the 618th TACC. He landed safely at Ramstein AB on July 26 and was flown by helicopter to further medical care. A few weeks later he flew back home to the U.K., where he’s recovering today.
There are a couple of things I like to highlight about this capability. First, ask yourself what other government and its military can, or will, go to such great extent to save a life? I can’t think of any other air force in the world that can do what we do—but that’s what sets us apart, and helps make us the most capable air force in the world. Second, our AE teams are absolutely amazing at what they do, and we don’t just provide this care for U.S. troops. We make the same commitment for our coalition partners, government civilians and local-national civilians, which is another reason the U.S. aeromedical evac capability remains unrivaled today.
Q: How important are developments with the KC-X at your AOC?
A: The KC-X is the Air Force’s number-one acquisition priority, and it’s extremely important to our operations in the 618th TACC, and across AMC, to field it and get it into the operational fleet. Tankers perform critical air refueling and also aeromedical evacuation missions required by our joint combatant commanders. Because of its enabling capabilities, our global force posture simply cannot operate without a reliable tanker force.
The priorities for today’s and tomorrow’s tanker fleets are to provide the war fighting commanders the support they need. In respect to our current fleet, we must accomplish modifications and retrofits to ensure the aircraft are mission ready and sustainable, to include meeting airspace access requirements. Our future tanker must provide the refueling capabilities of today’s fleet with more flexibility, such as the ability to refuel any receiver on any mission and still be able to carry out other mission areas such as aeromedical evacuation, cargo or passenger lift.
We owe it to our troops overseas to provide the most capable force that we have—and those troops rely on the fighters providing cover overhead, and those fighters rely on a predictable, capable air refueling fleet.
Q: What kind of changes have you seen in global airlift, air refueling and aeromedical operations since taking command of the 618th TACC?
A: AMC and the 618th TACC have been operating at a high ops tempo since 9/11, so today it’s a pace we’re used to and have maintained for some time. In fact, TACC-controlled missions moved over 5,000 passengers, nearly 2,000 tons of cargo and offloaded more than 843,000 pounds of fuel per day over the past year. When you look at that in everyday terms, that means we’ve moved enough people to fill the new Cowboys stadium more than 18 times, enough cargo to move eight aircraft carriers and offloaded enough fuel to fill 70 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Since taking command, I’ve been around for a number of significant operations and events—one of the more memorable being the shift of operations from Iraq to Afghanistan. While overall ground operations are increasing in Afghanistan, they’re slowing in Iraq, resulting in a shift for airlift and air refueling assets rather than an overall increase. We are, however, not only moving cargo and passengers from the United States, but also moving intratheater requirements from Iraq, to include MRAPs.
As we move more forces into country our need to resupply them by air increases due to the poor infrastructure, distances and threat from IEDs. This has led to a rise in the amount of airdrop missions being performed, which also directly impacts us at the 618th TACC because our Theater Direct Delivery C-17s fly airdrop missions daily in Afghanistan.
Q: Are there ever any cases where the amount of requirements you receive outnumbers the amount of airplanes and crews available, and if so, how do you decide who gets their gear first?
A: The organization that allocates aircraft and aircrew to fly AMC’s operational missions is the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center’s Mobility Management Directorate, and they work to meet as many requirements as possible with the assets available.
There are a number of factors to consider when looking at our aircraft and aircrew usage. First, not all AMC aircraft are always available for operational missions. On any given day, a certain number of aircraft and aircrews are needed at home station in order to remain current on training requirements or for maintenance purposes. Additionally, a certain number of aircraft are always undergoing depot-level and routine maintenance. After those training and maintenance assets are removed from the equation, the remaining aircraft and aircrews are used on AMC’s operational missions.
Another factor to consider is the sheer volume of requirements for airlift and air refueling. As you can imagine, we receive a constant flow of requests for airlift and air refueling capabilities in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. We have a significant number of requirements for other operations all over the world. On almost a daily basis, the number of requirements we have actually outnumber the assets we have available.
When this happens, the Mobility Management Directorate fulfills requirements in a rank-order basis, determined by the U.S. Transportation Command using guidance from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If a requirement does not get filled by an AMC asset, there are still a number of ways it can be met. In some cases, a simple delay is the solution. In other cases, that requirement may be filled by one of AMC’s commercial airlift partners, or U.S. Transportation Command may find a multimodal solution, moving by a combination of land, sea or air, in order to meet the requirement.
Q: What keeps someone who oversees our military’s inter-theater airlift up at night?
A: The thought that our men and women overseas won’t get the things they need, when they need it.
The KC-135 is a terrific aircraft, and it has served us well, but the fleet is nearly a half-century old. Some tankers may be nearly 80 years old before they are replaced, which is equivalent to the Douglass C-1, which refueled the Question Mark in the 1920s, refueling an F-22 today.
My number-one fear is that some event will cause us to have to ground the KC-135 fleet, and then the warfighter in Afghanistan or humanitarian event in some other location won’t get the support they need. Going back to my previous reference to troops in contact, if we don’t field a new tanker soon, we may not be able to refuel fighters that are providing cover to troops overseas, and that means putting lives at risk. Peeling that back a little bit, a reduced refueling capability means we can’t move cargo and troops, as far, as fast and as effectively as we normally do.
Q: Switching gears a little bit: we’ve talked about the support within the Department of Defense, but do you ever receive requirements to move equipment for other government agencies or in support of needs from other nations?
A: Absolutely. We continually offer humanitarian support at home and abroad when called upon, and in fact, having that American flag on an Air Force aircraft offering humanitarian support can be just as powerful an action as supporting troops in contact or airdropping cargo onto a mountainside in the AOR.
Just last month the 618th TACC planned, allocated and executed 16 sorties to move cargo and relief workers into American Samoa after the tsunami struck the region. The total impact was nearly 60 workers and over 125 tons of cargo moved to support the effort, and we also provided air refueling for one of the C-17s that made a direct trip from the U.S. to Pago Pago, American Samoa.
In May, a TACC-tasked mission delivered 30,000 H1N1 influenza prevention kits to the governments of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua to prevent the spread of the virus. In January, two AMC C-17s moved 75 tons of heavy equipment, including water tankers, fuel tank trucks, forklifts and other oversized cargo, from Kigali, Rwanda, to support peacekeeping operations in Darfur.
We’ve also answered the call at home, including during Hurricanes Ike and Gustav last year, when the 618th TACC coordinated hundreds of aircraft sorties resulting in movement of more than 9,000 evacuees, nearly 600 medical patients, and 1,379 tons of equipment to support relief efforts in the Gulf Coast region. Our operations other than direct war fighting can have just as important an impact as delivering rations, ammunition and equipment downrange. That’s what makes AMC so unique—we can offer a clenched fist of combat action when needed, and also offer an open hand of support around the world when that help is needed too.
Q: What does the future hold for the 618th TACC?
A: We’re always looking forward at world events and thinking ‘what if’ we need to respond, and we’re always working to find new ways to optimize air mobility capabilities. One thing that’s not going to change is the 618th TACC’s dedication and responsiveness to the needs of our forces and coalition partners around the world.
A large part of the evolution of air mobility is the Mobility Capability and Requirements study, which is a study that re-establishes the baseline of what AMC has and will have, planned current/future requirements and gaps where AMC needs to put dollars, people and resources. Every three to four years the Secretary of Defense directs this study enterprise-wide to include air, sea, pre-positioned stocks afloat, ashore rail cars, etc., to ensure mobility requirements can continue to be met in the future. As a big player in the mobility system, the 618th TACC clearly stands to adjust to any findings by that study, which is scheduled for completion later this year.
Q: Any final thoughts?
A: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss how we deploy, redeploy and sustain U.S. operations around the world. It’s been a true pleasure to serve, and I’m lucky to wake up every day and work with an amazing team that is responsible for moving 5,000 people and 2,000 tons of cargo every 24 hours. If there is a need for airlift, air refueling or aeromedical evacuation anywhere in the world, whether the requirement is planned a long time in advance or given on short notice, the 618th TACC is here to make it happen. ♦